A travel journal: Week 3 and 4 in Zaandam

We took the channel tunnel to France and it was just so futuristic and absolutely amazing for all of us - and less stressful with(out) the British passport controls. I recommend it to anyone, okay it is more expensive, but well worth the few quid extra.
On arrival in Zaandam, we discovered that our house was filled with dust from all the building work, because the men in charge (no names mentioned) did not think to close doors and cover furniture. We did manage to get the bedrooms dust free so we could bunk down for a night, and the following day we set off for another holiday home, this one close to Germany and only a 45 minute drive from where Tonino works. A different kind of hotel for him that week. I have to recommend the Landal Greenparks to anyone travelling with kids to The Netherlands, these parks are absolutely child friendly in every way possible, and if you have a child like mine who likes to disappear, then this is the place to go, because there is nowhere to disappear to. The website is www.landal.nl. Worth every penny. We went to Landal de Lommerbergen in Limburg. The original plan was to go to a couple of museums while we were there, but in actual fact we spent the whole week (me and the girls) in the pool and on the small man-made beach with adventure island. We attempted one visit to the fashion factory outlet close by (Roermond) but this was met with severe opposition from all four corners so we saved ourselves a lot of money (not that the handbags in the Prada shop were to my taste anyway). We will most definitely return to this park if Tonino keeps working in the vicinity.

I forgot to mention that our house was to be ready to move back in to at the end of this week in the park; however I received a call from Tonino to tell me that he had decided to renovate the downstairs loo as well, and that the new kitchen would not be arriving for another few days, and that it would all be done quickly. Dear readers, that was almost 2 weeks ago and I keep getting told that the builder will be done "tomorrow".

I have to admit that I thought I would have had enough of Zaandam after one week, but we are now in to our second week here. The girls have fired up old friendships, and our entire day revolves around the school play breaks and lunchtimes (the school is across the road from our house). I am very happy for them, and I myself have made hundreds of cups of tea or coffee for a quick chat (well not quite hundreds). It is really uplifting to receive such a warm welcome and it helps us to ignore the awful mess which is our house.

I have nothing much to report, we have been having a social whirl, most especially Cara who has to plan each week carefully to fit all of her buddies in. Cara is the one who feels most at home in The Netherlands. Siobhan and Ana want to get back to Youghal. Grainne is happy out, though she does get frustrated that she cannot natter away to the other children on the playground because her Dutch is not good enough.

I'll just add a few pictures from the last weeks and hopefully we can pick up the travel strings again next week or the week after when the school closes for the holidays and all of the kids' friends are away themselves.